Last-Minute Resolution Review

Time for a last-minute review of my goals for 2020.

Prayer - Formal Morning and Evening, Conversational Mid-day.
Hymns - Sing/Hum while Walking, Play Piano after Work
Meditation - At least Weekly, if not Daily

I almost want to add a goal or two that start with vowels so I can spell something with the acronym, but that would be short-sighted and poorly thought out. Besides, PHM is good enough. I might still pronounce it as "Fame" or "Fam," even without the vowels, or maybe I'll pronounce each letter individually, like ATM or HDMI.

The term I use to refer to the goal isn't as important as the goal itself and remembering to achieve it. Case in point, I can't remember if I said a prayer this morning, but I will certainly say a prayer tonight, and I'll try to remember tomorrow. I also played the piano yesterday, even though work won't start until mid-January. I should also meditate sometime soon. My plan is to meditate at the temple, if nowhere else, but we didn't go to the temple this week, and I didn't meditate at home. I will tonight, maybe right after posting this. Or right now. There's no time like the present.

I feel good about these goals. They're all good things to do, and I feel like they'll help me. Of course, they can only help me if I remember to to do them. Hopefully, blogging about them multiple times will help. I ought to also print up a list of these goals and put that list somewhere where I'll see it. Even putting a small note with "P.H.M." on it somewhere on my computer might do the trick. Referring to this goal on my blog throughout the year might also help. Doing either or both of those things should help me keep my goal.

In addition to remembering to keep my goal, I also need to not beat myself up for slipping up or falling short from time to time. The purpose of these goals is to help me draw closer to God. Beating myself up for not being perfect yet isn't going to accomplish that. Repenting will. So, when I fall out of the habit, as I'm certain I will, I'll dust myself off, recommit to the resolution, and carry on from there. There's no point in getting upset at myself or dwelling on how human I am. I am a child of God. I have the potential to become perfect. It's going to take time, and I'll make plenty of mistakes along the way, but I'll get there so long as I don't get discouraged and give up.

In a few moments, I'm going to begin a new year. This is a great opportunity for me to let go of whatever mistakes I've made in the past and instead focus on creating a better future. I believe that these resolutions I've made will help me do that. In my meditation just now, I pondered what my "best self" looks like, and while I don't have a clear, specific answer to that right now, I know that part of it is having a strong connection to God. Praying to Him daily, singing His praises, and focusing my thoughts on Him and my journey to Him will help me strengthen my connection to Him and help me be a better person. I want to be a better person by the end of 2020, and I believe that, if I keep these resolutions, I will be.

Thanks for Nothing

Today, I sent out a bunch of Thank You notes, thanking my family members for the gifts they got me, but I also received a Thank You note from someone to whom I hadn't given a gift. She thanked me for a gift I had gotten the family and for some service I did, both for the family and for her, but if you were to ask me, I'd say that it was nothing. The service I did for her and the family was nothing special. It's certainly nothing that warranted such a nice Thank You note. I was just helping out. I don't really think much about that sort of thing, but the person who gave me that note evidently felt gratitude for it anyway, and she even made me a note to thank me for it. She thanked me for something that I had thought was nothing.

This makes me want to thank her and others for the "nothings" they do for me and others. I want to thank my family members for the little things they do to help the family, including me, just as I was thanked for the little things I did. These small acts of service may not seem like much - they may be nothing, compared to the larger gifts and acts of service that people give this time of year - but these small acts of service still bless our lives, and those blessings amount to a lot more than "nothing."

So, the next time I thank someone and they tell me "it was nothing," I hope I remember to correct them. It wasn't nothing. Whatever it was, however small it was, it meant something to me. Or, if I'm feeling snarky and the mood is right, I might not fight against their "it was nothing" comment and instead say "well, in that case, thanks for nothing."

Good Goals

Today, I watched a Youtube video about why many New Year's Resolutions become abandoned. People tend to bite off more than they can chew and to leave their goals too vague to actually accomplish. People concern themselves with what they want to accomplish, not what steps they need to take in order to get there. I don't think I fell for that trap with my resolutions, but I could easily do that with my ultimate goal.

Ultimately, I want to become perfect and qualify to live in the highest layer of the Celestial Kingdom, but that is and incredibly lofty goal, and there are countless thousands of smaller steps I need to take in order to reach that lofty goal. If I had set "Become Worthy of the Celestial Kingdom" as my New Year's Resolution, I would certainly fail. It's a hard goal to reach, and I have no plan. Instead, it's recommended to break down lofty goals into tiny, achievable steps. For example, I'm going to try to draw nearer to God through Prayer, Hymns, and Meditation, and I have set specific times to perform specific actions to accomplish that goal. My hope is that being nearer to God will give me greater access to God's guidance, which will help me identify my next steps. The ultimate goal is still the same, but the current goal is a specific and manageable step toward that goal.

When I watched that Youtube video earlier today, I had been hoping for some guidance to help me improve my goal, but it turns out that I actually had the right idea. It's a small goal, but that means I know that I can do it. It won't get me far, but it is a step in the right direction. And it's specific and focused enough that I know exactly what I'm going to do. I have good goals for my New Year's Resolutions. I hope you do, too.

Why Today Felt Like Christmas

Today was great. Today really felt like Christmas, even more than December 25th did. Today, I went to my sister's house. I exchanged gifts with members of my family and watched other family members exchange gifts with each other. We played with our new toys, ate plenty of treats, and played together at the park. Then, at home, we opened a few more gifts, watched a movie, and stayed up late playing a game. We had a lot of fun today, and we did it as a family.

I guess that's what I really love about Christmas: having fun as a family. This is especially true when it means having fun playing with new toys and/or games that we gave each other, but I suppose that isn't necessary. We can have fun together anytime, doing anything. We don't have to be playing with something new. Sure, the new toys and games are exciting, and the fun of the game is enhanced by our gratitude for the game and our gratitude (and/or relief) that the game was well-received, but what's really important is that we share the experience with family.

I think that's why today felt more like Christmas than Christmas did. On Christmas day itself, we didn't do much, and we certainly didn't do much together. Today, a lot more happened. There was much more excitement and many more activities, and most, if not all of those activities were done in groups.

What I've learned from this experience is that I want to play games with my family more often. Often, when we get together, we generally do either of two things: watch a show together or play games by ourselves. One is passive, and the other is solitary. If we want to recapture the fun of Christmas, we will instead need to actively do fun things together. That's what I want to do because today was a fun day. I'd love to have more days like it, and I thankfully don't have to wait until Christmas to do it.

Brainstorming 2020 Resolutions

List of Activities and Practices That Would Help Me Draw Closer to God:

Morning and Evening Prayers - Make communing with God the first and last thing you do each day.

Daily Scripture Study - When? Mornings would be good for now, less so when Christmas break ends. Maybe I could read scriptures on my phone while I'm on the bus? That should work.

Temple Worship - Maintain the practice of going to the Temple with Mom every week (some exceptions allowable eg. illness, urgent service opportunities).

Service - Serving family counts. Is it enough, or should I set a specific goal to do more? What should I count as "service"? Would giving blood count?

Hymns - I'll continue to participate in Choir, but I could use more good music in my life. I should start playing the piano again, so long as it doesn't annoy people.

Meditation - Is that different from prayer? Should it be? I think so. Prayer involves communicating with God, while meditation allows a person to clear their mind. Stilling and centering one's thoughts is different than direction them toward God.

D&D - Play Good characters only. Preferably Fighters, Clerics, and Paladins. That would mean changing Grixis from Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Good, but I think I can justify that. He'd still be a Rogue-ish Wizard, though. He's far from being a Paladin, but he can still be a good person. I can relate to that.

Be a Paladin - How? Paladins are Lawful Good knights who use divine magic to fight against evil. I'm doing okay on Good, my Lawfulness could use some work. Divine magic = the Priesthood. I'm not sure how I feel about fighting against evil. I can certainly fight against the evil in myself, sure. But should I try to fight the evil in the world? In what way? I suppose I could speak out against evil, but I would have to carefully choose what evil to speak against. It'd have to be something that I feel strongly about and that is at least somewhat socially acceptable on a left-leaning campus. I suppose I could fight poverty.

I'm over-complicating this. I have several ideas. What specific goals do I want to set? I'll keep doing what I'm already doing, but what do I want to focus on adding? What would help me the most?

Let's focus on Prayer, Hymns, and Meditation. They're similar enough in purpose and in practice that I think I can focus on all three at once. Prayer and Meditation can blend into each other, and Hymns can be used during Meditation. D&C 25:12 says that "the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me," so there's that.

Okay, I have my focus. What, specifically, should I set as goals? We've already established the goal of daily morning and evening prayers. Maybe I should include mid-day, Tevye-esque, "conversational" prayers. Would daily meditation and hymn-singing be too often? My gut says 'no,' but when would I do them? I can sing hymns basically whenever. Maybe I'll incorporate that into my commute. I should also play the piano, maybe when I get home from work? I'll ask Mom if she'd be okay with that. But when should I meditate? When I get home, maybe? It should be at some time when I can be somewhere I can avoid distractions. Pulling that off daily might be asking too much. I might be able to do it at the institute, but it'll be tough to nail down an exact time for it. Guaranteed, I can meditate at least weekly. Maybe that'll suffice if I can't manage daily.

So, here's what I've got so far:
Daily morning and evening prayers
Mid-day, Tevye-esque, "conversational" prayers
Sing hymns while walking from place to place.
Practice Piano most weekdays (Maybe)
Meditate at least weekly, at the Temple, if not daily at Home or at Institute.

I suppose I could make some kind of checklist out of that, and if I wanted to get really serious about these goals, I probably would. Maybe it'll suffice to print this list of goals and keep the list somewhere where I'll see it. The bottom line for today is that I've set these goals. Later, I'll decide how I'll remind myself to keep them.

Morning and Evening Prayers

I know that this has nothing to do with Christmas, but our family just read Alma 37, and I read some good advice in verse 37:

Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day.

Now, the ideas of counseling with the Lord and having morning and evening prayers are nothing new. We've had that advice basically forever. Yet, I often fail to remember it, so this was a good reminder for me. I especially like the idea of prayer being the first and the last thing I do each day. I'm going to give it a shot and see how long it lasts. Maybe I'll make a resolution of it, for what that's worth.

I want to draw closer to God. This blog is supposed to help me do that, but praying more often would certainly help, too. Maybe I should make a list of things I could do to help me draw closer to God and choose some of them to focus on in 2020. Prayer and scripture study could certainly be on that list. I'll try to think of other things to add to the list tomorrow.

In the meantime, I'm going to start by trying to remember to pray more often, at least in the morning and evening. I should pray more frequently; multiple times daily wouldn't be too many, and I really like the idea of beginning and ending every day with prayer.

Good Tidings to All

I just saw (and shared) a picture of a cat-person (I think they're called "Khajiit" in her universe) offering a present to a dragon. The picture had the caption "Good tidings to all... even dragons." This gave me pause for thought (no pun intended), so I looked it up and, sure enough, Luke 2:10 tells us that "the angel said unto them [th shepherds], Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people"[emphasis added]. Everyone is blessed by the birth of Jesus Christ, even the people who don't believe in Him, even those who never heard of Him, even those who actively fought against Him and crucified Him. Everyone.

How is this possible? In what way are literally "all people" blessed by the birth of Jesus Christ? I can think of at least two ways. The first is a bit of a cop-out, and the second will take some explaining. First, the easy one:  Resurrection. Thanks to the Atonement of Jesus Christ, everyone who has ever been born, or even just conceived, will be resurrected with a perfect, fully-functioning, pain-free, immortal body. Everyone who has ever had a body or will ever have a body will ultimately be given the best body they could possibly hope for, and they get to keep them forever. Isn't that cool? I'm looking forward to having a body that never gets tired and is immune to injury and disease.

There's another aspect of the Atonement that offers forgiveness and salvation to everyone who seeks it. Yet, as awesome and essential as that is, it doesn't really help everyone. There are those who don't seek salvation and don't repent, and for those people, it's like that part of the Atonement never happened:

But remember that he that persists in his own carnal nature, and goes on in the ways of sin and rebellion against God, remaineth in his fallen state and the devil hath all power over him. Therefore he is as though there was no redemption made, being an enemy to God; and also is the devil an enemy to God. - Mosiah 16:5

Jesus also performed miracles while He was on the Earth, but those didn't bless everyone, either. Compared to the all-time global population, only a relatively small number of people were personally cured by Jesus, and even if we could those people's friends and families as being positively affected by those miracles, that still only blesses a small percentage of the people who were alive on the Earth at that time, much less across the whole history of the Earth.

Not even Christ's teachings bless everyone in the world. While there are many, many people who are blessed directly by the teachings of Jesus Christ, and even more people are blessed by the actions of those who follow His teachings, I must admit that there are still some people who slip through the cracks. There are those who, by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, have never heard of Jesus Christ and have never interacted with anyone who had. There are some people who are completely unaffected by the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Yet, even those people are blessed by Jesus. The people who were not blessed by the teachings of Jesus Christ are instead blessed by the Atonement of Jesus Christ which covers both those who repent of their sins and those who sin in ignorance and are "without the law. For the power of redemption cometh on all them that have no law" (Moroni 8:22). So, for each person on Earth, either they heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ and were therefore blessed by the life and teachings of Christ, or they didn't hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and are "without the law," so they're granted mercy and redemption through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

So Jesus birth was good news to everyone in at least two ways. First, His victory over death means that they will be resurrected, and second, they either learned His teachings and/or were redeemed through the power of His Atonement. Through these methods, Christ's birth offers "good tidings" to everyone, even the worst people who ever lived. First, everyone will be resurrected, no exceptions, and second, either they heard the teachings of Jesus Christ and were blessed to have the opportunity to follow those teachings (even if they ultimately threw away that blessing by rejecting that opportunity), or they didn't hear the teachings of Jesus Christ, and their sins were committed in ignorance and are therefore covered by the Atonement. Either they were blessed to have the chance to seek mercy, or they didn't get that chance and will receive mercy anyway. And, either way, they're guaranteed to be resurrected, so at least there's that.

It seems amazing to me that there are two separate ways in which literally everyone who has ever lived or will ever live are blessed by Jesus Christ. So, when the angel said that those "good tidings of great joy" would "be to all people," he really meant it.

The Date on which We Celebrate

According to tradition, December 25th is the day on which we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. However, December 25th is not the day on which Jesus was born. In fact, I have it on good authority that He was actually born on April 6th. On April 6th, 2014, Elder David A. Bednar said in a General Conference talk, "Today is April 6. We know by revelation that today is the actual and accurate date of the Savior’s birth." However, in my own personal opinion, none of that matters. It doesn't really matter whether Jesus was born "In the Bleak Midwinter" or not. That's trivia. What matters isn't when Jesus was born, but why. Similarly, it doesn't matter when we celebrate Christ's birth, but how.

We celebrate Jesus' birth on December 25th, but we could just as well celebrate it on April 6th or June 11th or any other date. It's not important whether we celebrate Christ's birth on His actual birthday or not. What's important is that we celebrate Jesus' life at all and that we do it with the reverence it deserves, regardless of whatever fun festivities may or may not also be happening on whatever day we decide to do it.

Gifts from the Heart

The last verse of In the Bleak Midwinter echoes a sentiment in The Little Drummer Boy and What Shall We Give?, in fact, it starts with much the same question:

What can I give Him, Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man I would do my part,
Yet what can I give Him, Give my heart

Gift-giving is a part of Christmas that causes some concern for many people, namely because it can be hard to know what to give people. It seems like other people have it so easy. If a person has a special craft or talent, they can give gifts related to that talent. If a person is rich, they can just buy expensive gifts. Yet, expensive gifts aren't always the best gifts. Gifts of one's talents are better because they represent an investment of personal time and effort. But it seems to me that the best gifts are those that come from the heart.

When it comes to giving gifts to God, that's all we can offer Him anyway. No mortal man will ever accrue as much in the way of resources as God has, so we can't buy God the perfect gift, and the shepherd's lamb wouldn't be that great a gift either, since we're passed the days of offering such sacrifices. Yet, there are other sacrifices God wants us to make, and there are other ways we can give good gifts to God and others.

We can make gifts of our time and talents, but ultimately, what we do for others isn't as important as why we do it. That's why I think that the best gifts are those that serve as expressions of love. That was the original idea, wasn't it? The greatest gift ever given was also the purest expression of love. We should follow that example. Whatever gifts we give to God and each other, I hope they come from the heart.

In the Bleak Midwinter

Until recently, I wasn't familiar with a Christmas carol titled In the Bleak Midwinter. I heard an instrumental version recently and looked up the lyrics. From what I found, the idea of the song seems to be that, Jesus Christ was willing to be born in very humble circumstances, despite His divine nature. He was worthy of heaven, yet He was willing to be born on Earth, "In the Bleak Midwinter." He had been worshiped by angels, yet He was satisfied with the adoration of farm animals. This all reminded me of how humble Jesus was. He knew that most of the world wouldn't recognize Him for who He was, but He only cared about that for their sakes, not for the sake of His ego. He was willing live among mortals, to temporarily give up the paradise of Heaven, all for our sakes. He loved us so much that He was willing to leave Heaven in order to give us a way to return. I'm thankful that He did that. I'm grateful that Jesus Christ was willing to come to Earth, to live among us, to suffer with us, and to die for us. He was the Son of God, yet He was willing to be human for 33 years, for our sakes. That's love.

A No-Stress Christmassy Day

Earlier this month, I said that there was "too much 'Christmas.'" Today, I had just about the right amount. I did some Christmas shopping, wrapped a few gifts, helped two of my siblings work on some homemade gifts, and listened to some Christmas music. I spent most of the day doing Christmassy things, yet it didn't overwhelm me. That was probably because I wasn't stressed about any of it.

I knew exactly what I was getting when I walked into the store and about how much it would cost. I walked in, bought the stuff, and walked out. I got it done early (in the day), so I wasn't under a time crunch. I didn't worry about whether the gift will be well-received because I included the receipt with the gift. If they don't like it, they can return it and buy whatever they want. No stress.

The wrapping wasn't too stressful either. They were simple shapes mostly, and the paper's all going to be torn to shreds anyway. It doesn't matter that some of the tape was applied crookedly. If anyone notices, that would be impressive, and if they say anything about that, I think that says more about them than about me. Did I do a perfect wrapping job? No. Does that matter at all? Also no. No stress.

Helping my siblings with their gifts, I was in my element. I wasn't in charge, I wasn't the idea guy, and it wasn't on me if things started to fall apart. I wasn't responsible for making sure the job got done well. I was just there to help. That's what I'm good at: helping. They asked me to fetch things, find things, clean things, and I did. I was mostly just an extra set of hands, and that's a job I know I can handle. No stress.

And the music was just for fun. It wasn't a huge production. I didn't have to go anywhere. I didn't have to perform, especially not in front of a crowd. I just put on some music and listened. Most of them were classic songs played in unique ways, and I enjoyed both the familiarity and the surprises. The music may have even reduced whatever stress I might have been experiencing. Listening to that music was less than no stress. It was negative stress.

So yeah, today was a great day for me, and almost all of it involved Christmas. About a week ago, I felt overwhelmed because there was "too much 'Christmas,'" and I still stand by what I said then: "I don't have a problem with Christmas itself. I have a problem with the noise that typically comes with Christmas." The problem isn't that there's "too much" Christmas; it's that I'm doing it wrong. I went to a party I didn't want to go to, I worried too much about Christmas presents, and I let something I normally love, music, become an obligation instead of a source of support. I worried too much about the parts of Christmas that don't really matter, and I wasn't thinking enough about the one part of Christmas that really does matter.

Like I said a week ago, "Christmas isn't supposed to be stressful." Thankfully, today wasn't.

Unlucky = Cursed?

I've blogged before about how "Lucky" really means "Blessed" (Thanks to Teresa for the inspiration!). Whatever we think we receive by random good fortune, we actually receive by the grace of God. But tonight I started to wonder: If "Lucky" really means "Blessed," what does "Unlucky" mean? Are unlucky people "Cursed"? Sometimes, though not always.

It's certainly true that people pull down just penalties upon themselves (curses, if you will) and that such karmic justice is sometimes attributed to "bad luck," but I don't think that all instances of bad luck are the result of cosmic justice. After all, Jesus, Job, and many of the early saints didn't deserve the bad fortune they faced. They weren't cursed by God, at least, not for anything they did wrong. Instead, in Job's and the saints' cases, those afflictions were opportunities to prove (and/or develop) their faith and faithfulness and to earn tremendous blessings, and in Jesus' case, most of His suffering was necessary to bring about the most tremendous blessing anyone could receive. So, in a sense, some trials are blessings, or at least opportunities to gain blessings.

Just because a person experiences bad luck, that doesn't mean that they aren't blessed of that God is cursing them for any wrongdoings. It could simply be a trial of their faith, a natural consequence of their own or another's actions, or perhaps even dumb luck. Given God's power and His interest in us, I'm not sure how much I believe in luck, good or bad, but I think I know God well enough to know that not all instances of "bad luck" are indications that anyone is "cursed."

Character Growth

In many stories, daresay most, the protagonist isn't perfect. Most good, complex characters have flaws and strive to overcome them, and they usually succeed by the end of the story. Those who enjoy these stories may be inspired by the growth of the protagonists and may seek to overcome their own flaws and achieve their own character growth. This is good and possible and important, but it's also harder than fiction makes it look.

In stories, characters tend to change quickly, sometimes changing the entire direction of their lives over the course of a two-hour movie. That's partly because movies skip over (or make montages out of) the long periods of time over which change really happens. In fiction, characters can change overnight or over the course of a few days, and that can happen in real life as well, on rare occasions, but most of the time, change is slow enough and gradual enough that we don't even notice it.

So, don't get frustrated if you feel you aren't changing quickly enough. Change takes time, time that most fictional stories don't have. Fictional stories make character growth happen quickly. We usually can't. Instead, we should focus on making slow but steady progress. We grow more like trees than like weeds. Fictional stories tend to complete character growth in hours, but don't hold yourself to that standard. We are eternal beings. Our character growth is a process of eternity.

Cooperation

I love cooperation. I love when people work together. I love when people support one another. I love when people share their successes and even failures with each other. That's part of why I love D&D, the best cooperative game I've ever played. It's also why I love being in a family. My family works together, and that's how we make it work. Cooperation is important and empowering, and it can even be fun! I'm a big fan of cooperation.

On Not Understanding Tools

I both do and do not know how to solve a Rubik's Cube. I know how to turn the sides of a cube to unscramble them. I know which moves to use at which times, but I have very little idea how those moves work. I don't know much about which moves move which pieces in what ways. Thankfully, I don't need to know how it works; I just need to know how to make it work.

Similarly, there's a lot I don't know about certain ordinances, the Priesthood, resurrection, and the Atonement. I'm not sure I understand all the forces at play here or how they interact with each other. Again, thankfully, I don't need to know. I don't need to know why baptism is essential in order to know that baptism is essential and how to perform them. I don't need to know how the resurrection will work out in order to be confident that it will. And I don't need to know how Jesus Christ was able to take my sins upon Himself; I just need to give my sins to Him and try not to make more of them.

This may seem foolish. I'm using powerful tools I don't fully understand. Yet, we all to that every day. We don't all know how computers work, but we know enough about them that we can use them to do great things. So what if I don't know the difference between a CPU and a GPU? I don't need to know how a computer works in order to use it.

So, while it's true that there are several gaping gaps in my Gospel knowledge, I think I know enough. At least, I know enough to let me make good use of the Gospel and its ordinances to bless myself and others, and that's all I really need for now. Of course, I'd love to study the Gospel more and better understand it, just as I would love to learn more about Rubik's Cubes and computers. Such information could help me to use those tools even better. But in the meantime, I understand those tools well enough to know how to use them, and at this stage of my life, that's all I really need.

Learning and Practicing

I've learned a valuable lesson from my Creative Writing class: While one can learn a lot from traditional education, knowing how to do something in theory is a lot easier than being able to do it in practice. Case in point, I can easily dream up fantastic worlds, characters, and stories, but when it comes down to actually putting one of them into words, onto paper, I struggle. Turns out, I'm better at writing essays than writing stories, and the reason for that is practice. I've written countless essays for my various classes, and I write a mini pseudo-essay every night. I have lots of practice writing essays, and I'm good at it. I don't think that's a coincidence. I also don't think it's a coincidence that I'm struggling to write a single decent story, despite all I know about story-writing. Since I don't actually practice writing stories, I'm having some trouble actually writing a story.

Of course, that just means that this assignment is good practice, and it's a sign that I need to practice more. Maybe I should add short-story-writing to my daily routine, especially if I eventually want to be any good at it. I've learned a lot about story-writing, but if I actually want to learn it, I need to put it into practice.

Too Much "Christmas"

The problem with Christmas is that there's too much of it. Too many songs. Too many treats. Too many presents. Too many parties and concerts and other events. Too many distractions from the core purpose of Christmas. Heck there are even too many reminders of the true meaning of Christmas, preaching to the choir for the umpteenth time.

I'm kind of sick of it.

Christmas parties are nice, for the people who like them. Christmas songs are nice, in moderation. Christmas presents are nice gestures, until/unless we stress out about them.

Christmas isn't supposed to be stressful. It isn't supposed to be noisy. It isn't supposed to burn people out or drive people crazy. It's supposed to be peaceful, spiritual, and quiet. I could really go for some peace and quiet.

So, for the rest of the Christmas season, I'm going to try to cut back as much as possible. I'll sing a few Christmas songs, exchange a few gifts, and maybe hang up a few lights, but other than that, I'm going to try to keep everything to a minimum. I want to simplify my Christmas this year. Maybe that'll help me feel the Spirit instead of feeling stress.

I don't have a problem with Christmas itself. I have a problem with the noise that typically comes with Christmas. I want to cut out as much of the noise as possible, leaving only a nice, simple, reverent Christmas. I really hope this works.

Repenting in Prayer and in Deed

The other day, I felt especially bad about something I had done, and I told myself that I should get down on my knees and repent, but then I thought that's not really how repentance works. Repentance means change, and while it's possible to change your mind, or even your heart, over the course of a single prayer, repentance also includes a change of behavior. We don't fully repent while we're on our knees but while we're only our feet, going about our daily lives. We can ask for forgiveness, promise to change, and even declare that we have changed, but that can't be the end of it. Repenting in prayer isn't enough on its own. To completely repent, we also need repent in deed.

On Not Avoiding Missionary Opportunities

On Fridays, Mom and I usually go to the Temple, but I almost decided not to go today and for one of the lamest reasons I can think of. I had to go to work this afternoon, immediately after our Temple trip, and I didn't want to go to work that well-dressed. I was worried that it might raise questions, and that I would then have to answer said questions. To reiterate, I almost decided not to go to the Temple because I was worried that I might have a missionary opportunity afterward.

I'm relieved to say that I ultimately chose to go to the Temple today (unlike last week. I can't remember why I decided not to go last week). I am also ashamed to admit that I'm a bit relieved that the dreaded missionary opportunity never came up. No one commented on the button-up shirt  or the tie I was wearing. Maybe they didn't notice? After all, I was wearing a sweater over them, but still, the white collar and blue tie were perfectly visible over the collar of the sweater. And yet, no one said a word about them, and I didn't say a word about the Temple or Ordinances or anything else that I had been dreading having to explain.

In my defense, I work at a Liberal-leaning college (as redundant as that phrase is), and my workplace in particular may have reason to take offense at my religion in particular, since two of my coworkers (one of whom outranks me) are gay. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is infamous for being anti-gay, regardless of our actual teachings about those who experience homosexuality, and I worry that if I act openly Conservative, let alone openly LDS a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I could lose my job. If a question became a discussion, and the discussion became an argument, and the argument created a "hostile work environment," I could potentially be fired for causing friction between myself and my coworkers. Of course, I could potentially mitigate this risk by emphasizing my "live and let live" attitude, but why take the risk?

Of course, that's no excuse for cowardice. I need to stand on a soap box or anything, but I shouldn't hide my beliefs under a bushel either. I don't need to share my beliefs unbidden, but I shouldn't avoid giving people opportunities to ask me about them. Going to work today, my plan had been to not point out that I was dressed formally (which I didn't) but to tel anyone who asked me about it that I had been to the Temple that morning, and if they then asked me about the Temple, I would do my best to explain. I was going to let them initiate the conversation, and I'm ashamed that I'm glad that they didn't. I should welcome opportunities to share my faith with anyone who asks about it. Instead, I count myself lucky that I went to work in formal attire and didn't have to tell anyone why.

I almost didn't go to the Temple today because I didn't want to have a missionary opportunity, and I'm glad that I didn't have one, because I'm worried that, if and when I have missionary moments at work, they might go badly for me. I hope I get over that fear and have the courage to talk about my beliefs if and when people ask me about them, even at the risk of losing my job. People have sacrificed far more than just their jobs for the sake of the Gospel. I, too, should practice the courage to openly live and share it.

Deciding the Outcome of a War

Every so often, I put off blogging until too late at night, when I'm too tried to be able to think of anything to blog about. I'm too tired to remember if anything blogworthy happened today, and I'm too tired to think of anything blogworthy about anything that happened today. I'm too tired to blog, yet I can't go to bed until I blog about something. Of course, the solution is to blog sooner, probably after having pondered blogworthy thoughts during the day. That may work in the future, but it doesn't help me now. For now, I think I'm going to accept the limitations of my mortal, physical body and try to make a mental note that, in the future, my spirit will have to work extra hard to overcome my body's deficiencies. It's just another way my spirit and my body are at war with one another. I'd say "I hope my spirit wins," but that depends entirely on me. My actions decide which side of me grows stronger. But right now, I think the wisest course of action would be to go to bed.

The Battle is Real

It's sometimes easy to forget that our fight against Satan is real and ongoing. It's so easy to get caught up with what's going on in the physical "real world," that we can end up ignoring or even disbelieving in the spiritual world. We might even forget that Satan and his forces of evil exist because we don't see them directly, which is exactly what he wants. Satan wants us to trust only in our eyes and other physical senses, completely ignoring our spiritual sense, because he wants us to forget that we're at war. And of course he would want us to forget that. There are few better ways to win a war than by convincing the enemy to stop fighting, and we're not likely to keep fighting this war if we forget about it.

It's important to remember that we actually are fighting against the devil and his evil spirits, that all of this is real, and that our souls are at stake. Satan wants to make us forget about this war or think it isn't real. That's why it's so important to remember that it is.

Duty and Goodness

Is doing one's duty a good act? If someone does what they're supposed to do because they're supposed to do it, is that a good thing for them to do?

In terms of D&D, no. It would not be a "Good" act. It would be a "Lawful" act, and I'll try to explain the difference. A Lawful Neutral character (that is, a character who obeys the rules and laws of society, but isn't swayed by Good or Evil) would obey the rules and laws of society, whether the rules are good or evil. If a Lawful Neutral character had a legal duty to evict a starving, elderly widow because she had no money and couldn't pay her rent, he very well might do it. On the other hand, a Neutral Good character (or a character who does good, within the law when possible but outside the law when necessary) might look the other way and let the widow keep her home.

These two examples reveal an important truth: When one has a legal duty to do something evil, it is not good to obey that duty. Therefore, doing one's duty just for the sake of doing one's duty is not necessarily good.

But what if one has a duty to do something good? Would it be considered "good" for them to do it, even if they only did so out of duty? My answer is Yes and No. The answer is Yes, because their duty is to do a good thing, and if they do it, a good thing is done. That is, by definition, good. For example, if a person has a legal duty to feed the hungry, and they do, then the hungry get fed, and that's almost certainly a good thing, at least for the hungry.

Yet, I don't think it would necessarily count as a good act for the purpose of evaluating the duty-doer's soul. I think that goodness is measured mostly by motivation. For instance, if a person tries to do good, but it goes badly, I think they still get points for trying. Meanwhile, on the other hand, if a person's actions are not motivated by a desire to do good, but coincidentally happen to be good, I'm not sure that fully counts as them doing good. If a person tries to hurt someone, but ends up helping them by accident, I don't think we would count that as a Good act.

So, by my estimation, doing one's duty because it is one's duty is, by itself, neither good nor evil. It can have good or evil results, depending on whether one's duty is to do good or evil, but I'm not sure how heavily that bears on a person's soul. In order for an act to be considered Good for the purpose of measuring a soul, it must be motivated by a good desire, and I don't think adherence to duty counts.

So, no, doing one's duty is not, by itself, a good act. Bummer. I guess I'll have to earn my brownie points by actually going beyond doing my duty to intentionally do good. At the very least, I'll have to do my duty, not just with the intent to do my duty, but also with the intent to do good.

"Merciful, Nonjudgmental, and Kind"

Of course this applies to those suffering from mental illness, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if mental illness was the context in which this quote was given, but I wonder if this quote also applies who suffer from a far worse mental condition: being wrong.

I don't mean being mistaken about some minor, inconsequential thing, like whether or not pineapple goes  on pizza or what the best or worst Star Wars movie is. I mean being dangerously, politically wrong about a matter of critical moral importance.

For example, let's say, (totally not) hypothetically, that there was a group of people who actively promoted and celebrated the murder of children. Would God still want us to be "merciful, nonjudgmental, and kind" to them?

I suppose the answer to that question depends on what, exactly, we mean by those terms. Of course, we should be merciful in that we should extend forgiveness and not seek vengeance for past sins, but we should also do what we can to prevent future sins against the innocent. We should be nonjudgmental in that we shouldn't judge them to be bad people, but we should also justly judge and correctly identify bad behavior. And while we should be kind enough to gently teach them the error of their ways, would it truly be kind to allow them to go on in those errors, knowing that they are (perhaps unwittingly) doing the work of the devil and condemning themselves to hell? I mean, it's their choice, right?

I think Aristotle had it right. Almost any virtue, if taken to too great an extreme, can become a vice. It may be possible to be too merciful, it's certainly possible to be too nonjudgmental, and it is downright easy to be too kind. Yet, those virtues are still generally virtues, and while it's possible to go too far with them, it is also possible to make the opposite error. It is easy to be too unmerciful, too judgmental, and too unkind. We should be careful to avoid both extremes.

What does that mean for those who promote child murder? I'm not sure, except that we should probably try to prevent our response from being "extreme," even in the fact of such an extreme example. Perhaps we should be mostly merciful, not terribly judgmental, and at least somewhat kind. That's probably not what Elder Holland intended, but I'm taking his quote out of context anyway, so I'm already in for a penny. I think it's generally better to have more of any given virtue than less of it, but even with virtues such as these, I think it's possible to take them too far.

Two Paths to the Same Place

One of the Youtube videos I watched today was from one of the more scientifically-oriented channels I follow, and they provided further evidence for something that I had always suspected. The video is titled "An Antidote for Dissatisfaction," and the proposed antidote is Gratitude. The video suggests that the more we exercise gratitude for what we have, the happier and more satisfied we'll be. But that isn't what I suspected. I already knew that from listening to the Prophets and Apostles. What I suspected was that, once scientific knowledge caught up with religious knowledge (and/or vice versa), the two sources of knowledge would reinforce each other. Truth is truth, and if any path to knowledge ultimately leads to truth, they're both going to lead to the same conclusions, even if they take different routes to get there.

That's why I'm not outright dismissive of Creationism or the Theory of Evolution. They seem to contradict each other, but that doesn't mean that one is right and the other is wrong. Maybe there's a piece of the puzzle we're missing that ties the two together. Maybe God created all species via evolution. I'm not sure exactly what the answer is, but some day I will be because at that time, both science and religion will be giving me the same answer. Now, I don't know whether science will find out that God created the animals or whether God will reveal that evolution was a key tool of creation, or whether science and religion will both give us some other answer entirely, but I believe that there will be a time when the truth is supported by both of these sources of it.

Science caught on that gratitude is a key to satisfaction, and one day, God will teach us the same Laws of Physics that science has already begun unraveling. As long as both of these sources are pointing us toward truth, we shouldn't be surprised to find that both of these paths lead us to the same places.

Knowing One's Own Weakness

I suppose that there's value in knowing one's own weaknesses and limitations. For example, I know that I get frustrated sometimes, especially when I'm tired. This information is useful to me because it tells me that I need to be extra careful how I interact with people at night. Knowing about this weakness allows me to watch out for it so it doesn't get the better of me as often.

Still, it'd be better not to have the weakness, but knowing about the weakness helps with that, too. Knowing what the problem is is a step toward determining the cause(s) and finding a solution. In this case, I can try to avoid people at night, perhaps by going to be earlier, so I don't have an opportunity to get testy with them. I could also make a habit of applying deep breathing exercises at night, especially when interaction with others is unavoidable. If I develop the right countermeasures and apply them consistently enough, I can practically eliminate this weakness, but I need to acknowledge and understand this problem so I can find the right solutions.

Of course, I'd rather not have this problem, but as long as I have this problem, it's good for me to know about it.

Using Talents to Bless Others

I just watched a documentary about RSVP, Reconciliation Singers Voices of Peace, a music group that dedicates much, if not most, of the proceeds from their CD sales to charity. I've attended their (Free!) concerts on a handful of occasions, and I can personally recommend them as excellent musicians. (Link to their Facebook page, in case you're interested.) But their talent isn't why I'm blogging about them. I'm blogging about them because they use their talents to help others.

All people have talents, some of which more immediately and obviously beneficial than others. For instance, those with medical talents have a fairly clear and direct way to bless others. Those who can knit, crochet, sew, or quilt can make warm clothing and blankets for those that need them. Those who can build and/or repair houses can also donate their time in directly helpful ways. However, many other talents, like singing, are most beneficial to others when one also applies the talent of creative thinking. Singing for someone may help them in some ways, and that can certainly be comforting and uplifting, but for a singer's help to go beyond that, the singer would need to get creative with how they use their talent to bless others.

For those of us without obviously, directly beneficial talents, we need to find creative ways to use our talents to bless others. Perhaps, to make things a little easier for ourselves, we can follow RSVP's example and use our talents to raise awareness and to raise money for good causes. For another example, there's a Youtuber I follow named Timothy Hickson, who runs a channel titled Hello Future Me. His talents lie in analyzing fictional stories, characters, and worlds, mostly to entertain others, but at the moment, he is using his Youtube channel to raise money for Crisis Textline, which provides support for people who suffer from depression and mental illness. At the time I'm writing this, he has raised $10,280. By the time you read this, that number is almost certain to be even higher, and it's all going to a good cause.

Perhaps we can do something similar. Those of us who can craft can sell craft goods for charity. Those of us who can bake can sell baked goods for charity. I use my moderate writing talent to help my fellow college students with their writing skills and assignments so they can get through college and hopefully land decent careers. Perhaps there's more I can do.

We all have talents, and many of those talents can be used to help others. We just might need to get creative with our talents and/or monetize them so we can raise money for charity. There's always some way we can help. RSVP uses their singing talents to raise money and awareness for good causes, and Timothy Hickson is, at this very moment, using his Youtube channel for good as well. If talents like singing and literary analysis can be used to bless others, I'm sure our talents can as well.

No Shame in Weakness

Today, I talked with someone about how, sometimes, people let their pride stop them from seeking help and what a tragic waste that is. All of us need help from time to time. After all, we're only human. There is no shame in having weakness. However, there is a certain strength in having the wisdom to seek help. Those who seek help often get it, and that help gives them an advantage. Everyone has weakness, but only those with enough courage to acknowledge their weakness can get the help they need to make up for it. So, acknowledging a weakness is not, itself, a sign of weakness; it's a sign of strength. There is no shame in having a weakness, but it takes a certain kind of strength to acknowledge that weakness.

Daily Repentance

I sometimes forget that repentance isn't just for major sins; it's also for minor shortcomings and everything in between. As such, it makes sense to repent, not just whenever we do something seriously wrong, but whenever we do anything wrong, or even just fall short of perfection. After all, perfection is our ultimate goal. So I think it would make sense to take a moment in our daily, evening prayers to ask for forgiveness for anything we've done wrong over the course of the day and then to wake up each morning with the resolve to try to do better. Since we fall short of perfection every day, I think it makes perfect sense to repent every day as well.

Time is (Somehow Surprisingly) Short

The end of the semester has snuck up on me. We came back from Thanksgiving break, and suddenly, there are only two weeks left in the semester, more like a week and a half at this point, including only one weekend in which to write the final papers for my classes. Thankfully, they don't seem to be huge or terribly complex assignments, but I thought I would have more time to work on them.

Of course, life is like that sometimes. We don't always see what's up ahead of us, even when it should be fairly clear. I knew that the semester only lasted until mid-December, and I knew that Thanksgiving break went right up to the end of November. I knew for half of the semester that I had these assignments coming up some time in the future, but I didn't pay much attention to that. I didn't look far enough ahead in my calendar. Now the end of the semester is only a week and a half away, and I'm not entirely prepared for that.

I hope I'm better prepared for the Second Coming or for my own death, when that time comes. I know it's coming, and I have a vague idea that one or the other will happen within my lifetime. I have a handful of decades, tops, before I need to be ready for Judgment. Will I be ready? Or will I procrastinate indefinitely, continually thinking that "some time in the future" will always be "some time in the future"?

The semester is almost over. "Some time in the future" is happening now. Very soon, I will have to turn my papers in, and when I do, I'll have wished I had spent more time on them. As long there's nothing more than my grades at stake, that's not a terribly huge deal, but when my immortal soul is at stake, I hope I will feel that I had spent an adequate amount of time preparing for that.

Self Love

In my literature class, we just read a short story about a princess who couldn't decide which suitor to marry and ended up falling in love with a collection of junk items that seemed to be enchanted to resemble a reflection of herself. The Royal Advisor who assembled this seemingly supernatural contraption took the princess's attraction to it as a sign that the princess would only ever love herself, calling her selfish and spoiled. However, in our discussion of this story, some of us wondered whether it actually is wrong for a person to love themselves, or whether a certain amount of self love could actually be healthy.

My answer to this question is that it certainly is okay for a person to love themselves. In fact, we may even be commanded to. Jesus said "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," and "Love one another." If we are supposed to love others and if we're supposed to love others as much as we love ourselves, that means that we are supposed to love ourselves. However, it is possible for self love to go too far. If our self love turns into self absorption or self obsession, then we have arguably gone too far.

As to whether the princess went too far, I think that, by the end of the story, she had. Even knowing that her lover was a pile of junk, she fawned over that junk until it nearly killed her and almost certainly drove her at least temporarily insane. Naturally, we don't need to take our self love that far. We can leave it as loving ourselves to the same extent that we love our best friends. It is good and healthy, mentally and spiritually, to love ourselves as much as we love others, no more, no less.

Joy Despite Afflictions

This week's Come, Follow Me lesson focused a lot on how we can experience joy, despite our afflictions, and that works well enough for those of us who don't suffer much, but I wonder how a message like that might sound to someone who suffers much more than I do.

They say that happiness is affected more by our attitude than our circumstances, but our circumstances aren't all that bad, especially compared to others'. I suppose I should only speak for myself, but I've got a pretty decent life. I'm not rich, but I don't suffer from poverty either. I never worry about not having enough food to eat. I never worry that my utilities might get shut off. And when a problem arises that I can't solve on my own, I'm confident that I hire someone to solve it for me, assuming I don't already know someone who'd be willing to help me for free. All told, I live in fairly terrific circumstances. Sure, I can experience joy and happiness despite my circumstances not being completely perfect, but what about those who are far worse off than I am? What about those who experience true poverty and affliction? What about those who experience constant pain and/or fear for their lives? There are countless people, in this country and many others, whose situation is far less agreeable than mine is. Can they find joy and happiness, too?

Perhaps, if they consider the eternal perspective. Life is short (on the eternal timescale), and those who faithfully endure afflictions they didn't deserve will receive great blessings in the afterlife. If one believes that, perhaps they can bear their afflictions with enough patience that it's possible for them to see the silver lining to their suffering and perhaps even experience some joy.

It's easy for me, a person who doesn't suffer much, to say that attitude is everything, and there are some people who, historically, experienced joy, even in the face of terrible suffering, but I think that experiencing such joy in the face of such suffering takes more than just a positive attitude. I think it also takes a certain amount of belief in the fact that, in the end, everything that is unfair about life will be made fair through the power of the Atonement. Those who experienced unearned suffering will be compensatarily blessed, and those who caused unearned suffering will receive their just desserts. If one believes that God is ultimately kind and fair, perhaps one can experience joy, even in mortality, despite the fact that mortal life usually isn't kind or fair.

Church Service

Today was my last day of building cleaning until next July, assuming I still have the calling then. Over the course of the last five months, I have received help from countless Ward members, and the only thing I can really do to repay them is to respond to service opportunities as often as I can. Maybe that's the point.

In this  church, as in many other churches, people serve each other. We give service with little thought of reward, knowing that, when we need help, others will be willing to return the favor. I will serve others just as others have served me, and the people I serve will go on to do service as well, repeating the cycle indefinitely.

So, maybe I shouldn't feel bad about asking for help or allowing others to do service for me. That's part of how the church system works. Service is part of membership, both giving when asked and receiving when needed. Many people have helped me over the past several months. I plan to help many people as well.

The Ward Family

Yesterday, I heard of someone doing something nice for someone else, making them feel welcomed and loved. Since I knew that this is one of the primary functions of the Ward, I commented proudly that that's what the church is for. Then I was informed that, while the receivers of the service were members of the church, the givers of the service were not. Rather, they were distant relatives of the receivers of the service. So, to amend my statement, I'd say that that's what family is for, but the way I see it, the two are fairly similar in function.

Both Wards and families are supposed to love and support it other. Ward and family members teach one another what is true and good and how to behave. Ward members and family members do service for each other out of the goodness of their hearts and for the sake of their Wards and families, respectively. And though those are the only examples that come immediately to my mind, there are almost certainly other connections that could also be made.

The ideal Ward and the ideal family make excellent role models for each other. I would expect a good Ward to behave much the same way as a good family would behave, and vice versa. So, while I was a bit surprised to hear that the givers of welcoming service weren't members of the church, I wasn't at all surprised to hear that they were members of the family because a good family is just as loving and welcoming as a good Ward would be. Both are, or should be, plenty loving and supporting, so it shouldn't be surprising to me that they act in similarly good ways.

Blogging From My Phone And Why Only God Can Judge Me

Our internet connection is back, but I think I'm going to continue to blog from my phone from time to time, not only because it maintains the excuse to write short blog posts, but also because it allows me to blog wherever I am and whenever I want. Whenever I have a blogworthy thought, I can blog about it. I don't have to wait until I get home tonight my computer (by which time, I will probably have forgotten the blogworthy thought). I can blog about whatever I feel like blogging about while it's still fresh in my mind.

Case in point: My brother just told me that I'm probably as good a person as I think everyone else is. For context, I know a lot of good people who don't think they're all that good. My mom is constantly doing good things for the benefit of others, yet she usually disagrees with me when I tell her how good I think she is. And just a few days ago, my brother had us pull over to help someone who seemed to have crashed. It turned out that they didn't need our help, but we would never have known that if my brother hasn't said that we should pull over and check. My brother is a good person, and as we made our way back to the car, I told him that.

He returned the compliment this morning when I got out of bed at around 6:30 to take out the trash, despite the rain. It was a good act, technically, but I only had to take out the trash this morning because I had forgotten to take it out yesterday. The facts that it was early and that it was raining lightly were irrelevant. Besides, my brother probably doesn't know a few other things about me that make me not such a good person. Though I suppose I don't know everything there is to know about him, either.

Our judgments of ourselves and others stem from what little we know about ourselves and others. All we know about what we know about others is based on what we see of them I'd based on what we see of them. If we see then do good, we might conclude that they are good people, partly because we don't see whatever evil they may hide. We know ourselves a little better, since we know both the good and the bad that we do, yet we may not know all the context. For example, if we make bad decisions in the face of difficult circumstances and strong temptations, that's fairly understandable. We're only human. But if our bad decisions come as a result of only mildly taxing circumstances and weak temptations, then we certainly have room for improvement. The trouble is that we can be rather poor judges of how challenging our temptations and circumstances are.

Only God knows exactly how good people are and how difficult their challenges are, so He is the only being who can properly judge anyone. We might judge others as being good and ourselves as being not as good, but we are missing several pieces of important context. We can't judge people properly because we don't know them or their circumstances perfectly. Only God does. So, while we may justly point out the good and bad things that people do, perhaps we shouldn't be so quick to judge anyone as being good or bad people, because (if for no other reason) we don't perfectly understand the context of the circumstances under which those people do those good or bad things.

Taking out the trash doesn't make me a good person, and having bad habits doesn't necessarily make me a bad person. Only God can judge what sort of people people are.

A Blessing in Disguise

Our internet connection is still out, but no matter. As trials go, this is just a minor inconvenience, and, like most trials, this is probably a blessing in disguise. Without the internet, I spent less time on YouTube and more time resting, which is probably good for me. Holidays are supposed to be somewhat restful, so this reminded to rest is almost certainly a good thing. And the excuse to write shorter blog posts doesn't hurt, either.

I'm looking forward to getting the internet back, but in the meantime, as odd as it might sound, I'm kind of enjoying not having it.

A Nearly Forgotten Blessing

My household is experiencing some technical difficulties tonight, so I thought I wouldn't be able to blog tonight, but then I remembered that I can blog from my phone. What a blessing! We have many blessings. In fact, we have so many blessings, we may take some of them for granted, and even forget about them. Let us try to remember our blessings and make good use of them. God gave us these blessings for a reason. He wants us to remember them, thank Him for them, and put them to good use.

Pray Before Need

Interesting.

I just said a prayer, asking for help in deciding what to blog about (a prayer that God, apparently, answered), and it occurred to me that, while I'm fairly good at praying when I need help, I usually wait until I realize I need help before I pray.

For example, when I vacuumed up a Sacrament cup into a vacuum that wasn't big enough to handle it, I'm pretty sure I tried one or two things before I prayed for guidance to help me out of that predicament, and I certainly didn't pray for help before I began vacuuming because I didn't think I'd need it.

I wonder if that's one of the reasons God lets us get ourselves into trouble so often: to remind us how much we need Him. Of course, if I was wiser, I might remember to pray for guidance and assistance before things go wrong. If I did, things might not go wrong as often. For instance, if my morning prayers included asking God to help me recognize blogworthy moments, and if I prayed periodically, asking God to help me see the messages in the daily events unfolding around me, perhaps I would less frequently end up in the situation where I have only an hour until midnight, and I still don't know what to blog about.

I already knew that I need to pray often, far more often than I do, and I already knew that I need to pray, even when I don't feel worthy to pray, but now I also know that I always need to pray, even when I don't think I need to. I know I can pray in times of trouble, and I sometimes remember to, but now I know that it's far better to pray before I get myself into trouble, and that, if I did, I might get myself into trouble less often.

It makes sense to pray for the help that I very well might need, and it makes all the more sense to pray for that help before the hour in which I need it.

Faith Shown by Works

This afternoon, I had the privilege of joining a Primary class during the second hour of church. The lesson this week focused on the relationship between faith and works. Essentially, if we have sufficient faith, our faith will move us to action, and that action will be the evidence of our faith. James 2:18 reads "Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works."

When we truly believe something, we act on that belief. My faith in the wiring of my house leads me to pull the cord of a ceiling light every morning, fully expecting the light to turn on. My faith in my employers leads me to work for them, fully expecting them to pay me for my time. And my faith in God leads me to strive to keep His commandments, because I fully expect that I will be blessed for my efforts to be righteous. If I didn't have faith in God and His promises, then I probably wouldn't bother trying to keep His commandments.

About a week or two ago, I participated in a Peak Adventures climbing course. Secured by a harness and a set of climbing ropes, I climbed up at least 20-30ft and walked across a log from one tree to another. Without that climbing gear, that activity would have been very dangerous and incredibly foolish. I could have fallen to my death from such a height, and as the saying goes, there's nothing easier than falling off a log. I was (mostly) comfortable with risking my life in that activity because I knew that I wasn't really risking my life. Had I fallen, that rope system would have stopped me from falling to my death. I was only willing to act because I had faith.

I wonder if my faith in God is as strong as my faith in a harness and a set of climbing ropes. Do I have enough faith to take whatever risks He asks me to take, fully expecting everything to work out alright? Do I have enough faith to follow whatever path He asks me to follow, fully expecting it to lead me to a good destination? I suppose, when the time comes, my actions will show whether I have such faith or not.

I hope I have such faith, and I want to develop such faith, just to make sure I have it, because, on some level, I believe that God knows what's best and that His plans always work out. I hope that I'll be wise enough to follow Him, even when the decisions get dicey, but that's going to take a lot of courage, or rather, it's going to take a lot of faith. I hope that, when the stakes are high, I will still have enough faith to show my faith by my works. I hope I have the courage to put my money where my mouth is, or rather, to put my behavior where my beliefs are. It's easy to say that I have faith in God and His promises, but if I really have such faith, I'll be willing to prove it by acting on it.

Distraction and Procrastination

In his recent General Conference talk, "Be Faithful, Not Faithless," President Stephen W. Owen call Satan " the master of distraction and author of procrastination." President Owen also warned that "The adversary will try to persuade you that spiritual nourishment isn’t necessary or, more cunningly, that it can wait." As a person who tries to blog about something spiritual each day, I especially need to heed President Owen's warning.

I often find myself spending the whole day on everyday concerns and distractions, and I usually end up struggling to think of something to blog about each night because I neglected to nourish my spirit during the day. If only for my blog's sake, I should regularly devote some time to seeking inspiration, but I know that it's not only my blog and my sleep schedule that's important here.

I blog every day because I made a commitment to blog every day, but there's a deeper reason God asked me to make that commitment. I need to regularly nourish my spirit. The welfare of my soul depends on it. Maintaining my blog forces me to spend at least a few moments each day reflecting on something spiritual. Without that, I can easily imagine myself getting thoroughly caught up in the distractions of the day and up off my eternal, spiritual needs indefinitely. My blog is supposed to help me stay out of the trap that President Owen warned us about.

The thing is, it's only barely working. Yes, thanks to my blog, I reflect on something spiritual most nights, but that's not enough. For real spiritual nourishment, I need to do more than pull a quote out of a Conference talk at the last minute. I actually need to ponder spiritual matters throughout the day, not just touch on one of them at the end of the day. My blog prevents me from ignoring spiritual matters altogether, but I need to do more.

I shouldn't allow myself to become distracted like I often do, and I can't afford to keep procrastinating. My spiritual nourishment can't wait until the end of the day every day. For my soul's sake (and for my blog's sake), I should study the Gospel much earlier in the day as well.

The Vacuuming of a Sacrament Cup

This morning, I got myself into what could have been a good deal of trouble, but some prayer got me out of it again.

I was vacuuming in the chapel, and a small, plastic, Sacrament cup got stuck in the vacuum's hose. Normally, when vacuuming in the chapel, I use a larger vacuum whose larger hose can handle Sacrament cups without any issue. However, that vacuum is also heavy, and I was vacuuming up in the Sacrament Prep room, at the back of the choir seating. I didn't want to haul the larger, heavier vacuum up there, so I used one of the smaller, normal-sized vacuums instead, only to realize, an instant too late, that the smaller vacuums' smaller hoses aren't large enough to handle Sacrament cups.

The cup became stuck in the vacuum's hose. I had no way to reach it to pull it out, and I had nothing I could use to push it through. It was stuck beyond any means I could think of to get it out.

So I prayed.

Actually, I prayed as soon as I realized there was a problem and couldn't immediately think of a way to solve it. I then tried everything I could think of, to no avail.

Eventually, I had a thought that had to have been inspired. I realized that, even though I couldn't push or pull the cup out with any tool or technique at my disposal, I could still, theoretically, suck it out with the larger vacuum, so I hooked the vacuums up to each other, removed the filter from the smaller vacuum so its hose would have as little obstruction as possible, and turned on the larger, stronger vacuum. I instantly heard the cup shoot out of the smaller vacuum's hose and down the hose of the larger vacuum. The problem was solved.

And, gratefully, I prayed again, thanking God for leading me to the solution to my problem.

There is at least one analogy I can pull out of those two vacuums, and the moral is that when we face problems that are too big for us to handle, we should connect to God and trust Him to take care of the situation. Of course, God usually helps us only after we've done what we can do and it doesn't work, and His solutions still usually involve some further effort on our part, but when our limited abilities are connected to His greater wisdom, we can accomplish much more than we could have accomplished alone.

I had no way to get that Sacrament cup out of that vacuum. If I hadn't been inspired with the solution to my problem, I would have had to admit that I had made a serious mistake and that someone much more qualified then me was going to have to fix my mistake for me. But as it turns out, that kind of happened anyway. I confessed my mistake to God, and He, being much more qualified than I am, suggested a solution. And here I am now, admitting my mistake to all the world (or rather, to the dozen-ish people who read this blog).

But the thing is, there's no shame in going to God, admitting we've made mistakes, and asking for His help in solving them. He already knows what happened and how foolish we were, and He's not usually terribly judgy about it, especially when we come, not offering excuses, but humbly seeking help.

In hindsight, I'm glad I accidentally made that big of a mistake this morning, but that's mostly because I'm glad that I learned some valuable lessons from that mistake and that God graciously bailed me out of it.

Set Up For Failure

Does God ever set us up for failure? Does He ever give us impossible tasks or make the tasks before us impossible, just so we'll fail them? I kind of doubt it. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing He would do, unless He had a very good reason.

Yet, He has one. Failing is a learning experience. Failure helps us grow and improve. There may even be some vital lesson(s) that can only be learned through failure. Don't we need to fail sometimes, as part of the mortal experience?

But of course, even if we do need to experience failure, God wouldn't have to pull any strings to make it happen. We experience plenty of failure, with or without God's influence. God doesn't set us up for failure because He doesn't have to. All he has to do is step back every so often and let life play out as it may.

When we experience failure, or any one of many other types of hardships, it's easy to feel like blaming God, yet I don't think it's usually His fault. God gave humans agency. Often, He just steps back and lets us decide what to do with that agency, whether that works out well for us or not.

Sure, there may be specific instances when God makes sure sure some doors close and others open, but in general, even if failure is an essential experience, I don't think God would set us up for it, if only because He doesn't have to.

Try

I often let my feelings of inadequacy prevent me from trying much of anything outside my comfort zone. I'm often afraid to fail. But if I never try anything, that is also a form of failure, and it prevents me from learning and improving. It is essential to try things I might not be able to do, if only to see whether or not I can do them. I might surprise myself, if it turns out that I actually can do them, and if I can't do them, trying and failing lets me learn why I can't do them and how I might improve.

I need to practice the courage to step out of my comfort zone and try things that I might not be able to do. It might turn out that I actually am able to do those things, and I just don't know it yet. But the thing is, I will never know whether or not I can do something or why I can or can't do something until and unless I am brave enough to try.

So try new things. Shoot for the moon. Do something daring. You might surprise yourself. At the very least, you'll learn something, and what you learn will help you grow. So, whatever it is that you think can't do, you owe it to yourself to at least try.

Sibling of the Savior

I heard a story (true or not, I'm not sure) about a man who paid a visit to a Primary class. Apparently, he was friends with the teacher? Anyhow, the children seemed somewhat fascinated with the man, thinking that he bore an uncanny resemblance to someone else whose picture they had seen. One of the children finally worked up the courage to ask him, "Are you Jesus?" The man wasn't sure what to say, but the Primary teacher said, "No, that's His brother."

This story (true or not, it doesn't matter) highlights an eternal truth. All people, imperfect as they are, are siblings of the Savior. He loves them like family, because they are. When we interact with other people, even strangers, we should bear in mind that not only are they our spirit brothers and sisters, but also His.

Thinking about that makes me look at others in a different light. It makes me want to treat people nicer, since they have a close, familial, if not also personal relationship to Someone with whom I want to have a close, personal relationship. It's kind of like talking to a friend of a friend. You may not know your friend's friend personally, but you still might be friendly to your friend's friend, if only for the sake of your friendship with your friend. Because Jesus loves all His brothers and sisters, He cares a lot how we treat them, so we should treat them nicely, if only to strengthen our relationship with Him.

We are currently reading the Epistle of James, Jesus' biological half-brother, and that's pretty special, but while we may not be biologically related to Jesus, we are all spiritually related to Him even closer than James was, biologically, and that's true of everyone who ever lived. Granted, there are plenty of black sheep in this family, but they're still family, and they can still end up where the Savior is if they follow the path He opened up for them and for all of us.

It's good to feel a kinship with all mankind, and we certainly have such a kinship, but it's a lot more meaningful to know that everyone on Earth has a direct, spiritual kinship with Jesus.

Feeling Bad About Repenting

There are times when I feel bad about repenting. I don't mean that I feel bad for needing to repent; of course I feel bad about that. I mean that I feel bad about performing the act of repenting. It somehow feels like I'm adding to the Savior's burden when I repent (even though I actually did that the instant I sinned) or that I'm mocking His sacrifice by frequently making use of it.

However, I recently realized that Jesus is probably happy about us making good use of His Atonement. After all, healing people, physically and spiritually, is basically His whole shtick. He was literally born for this. Though the Lord is almost certainly irritated when we try to abuse His Atonement, He probably also gets upset when we let it go to waste.

So, while I'm still going to try not to need His forgiveness any more often than I have to, I'm going to pray for His forgiveness as often as I need it, because I'm pretty sure that's what He would want me to do. I recall having heard somewhere that The Savior Wants to Forgive, so perhaps I shouldn't feel bad when I have to ask Him to do that.

Several Lessons on Chastening and Affliction

This morning, my mom and I talked about chastening and affliction, and as I reviewed a list of potentially-blogworthy thoughts, I noticed that many of those thoughts also relate to chastening and affliction, so I figured I should blog about that, if only to cross some of these thoughts off the list.

One thing Mom and I talked about this morning is that it can sometimes be difficult to tell whether or not a given affliction is an indicator of wrongdoing. Sometimes, God chastens us to let us know that there's something of which we need to repent in order to regain God's blessings, and other times, afflictions are just a part of life, simply a result of the fact that life isn't perfect. Our afflictions aren't always calls to repentance; sometimes, they're just opportunities to grow. So, what should we do when we don't know whether a given affliction is a call to repentance or a growing opportunity? One idea is to treat it like it's probably both. First, treat it as a learning experience and (as faithfully as possible) try to learn whatever lesson God seems to want to teach you. At the same time, do a little bit of soul-searching. Nobody's perfect, so there are always at least a few sins we could stand to work on, even if the given affliction isn't a direct response to the given sin. We all have sins to repent of, and we all have room to learn and grow. Almost any affliction could be viewed as a reminder to do either or both.

Because afflictions are so useful, it's possible to view them as actually being blessings. In fact, in the eternal perspective, they are. Our afflictions help us learn and grow, and they remind us to repent. These are all good things. Sure, afflictions are unpleasant as they happen, but after we've made good use of them and benefited from the growth they fostered in us, we can look back on those afflictions and see how they worked out for our good.

Certainly, afflictions help us to grow more than a lack of afflictions does, which may be why The Book of Mormon spends several chapters covering a few months or years of war, but then skips over several years of peace in just a few sentences. Hardship is more instructive than ease. Perhaps there's more to learn from a few months of affliction than from years in which nothing goes seriously wrong. Without our afflictions, there would be less incentive to grow, so we wouldn't grow as quickly. God give us afflictions because He knows we need them in order to help us progress.

Hebrews 12:6 says "whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth," so when God chastens us and calls us to repentance, He does so out of love. God wants what's best for us, and what's best for us is to grow to become like Him. To become like Him, we have to progress toward perfection, we have to repent and become pure. Chastening reminds us to do that. Chasten helps us know when and where to turn on our path toward perfection. So, chastening isn't just punishment or retribution. It's actually very useful to us. That, I think, is why God chastens us, because He hopes that we will use that chastening as a reminder to become our best selves.

There is a lot we can learn about (and from) chastening and affliction, which may be part of why we experience it so often. God wants us to learn important spiritual lessons like these ones, and chastening and affliction are excellent teaching tools. Chastening and affliction aren't just punishment or needless suffering. There is a point to all of it, and that point works out to our benefit. That's why chastening and affliction are actually a form of blessing, sent to us by a loving God who wants us to progress toward perfection. Chastening and affliction help us do that; they may even be essential. At the very least, they're useful. We can learn a lot from our chastening and afflictions.

How Important Is Blogging?

I had all day to write this, but I did other things instead, and now I have ten minutes. Granted, I don't feel too bad about that because I spent much of that time working on some art and emailing a friend. Time well spent, I'd say.

Often, when I have little time left for blogging, I end up rethinking my priorities, thinking that whatever I had done was less important than writing a spiritual blog post, but I think that there are also things that are more important than blogging, and if those more important things cut into my blogging time, so be it.

Blogging is important to me, if only because I made a commitment to do it, but it still may not be the highest priority in my daily life. If I sometimes act like blogging is more important than anything else I could be doing, then maybe I do need to rethink my priorities.

Granted, I can usually blog and still do everything else I have to and should do, and when I can blog, I should. I just think that blogging isn't the most important thing in the world, and it shouldn't come at the expense of doing things that are more important than blogging.

People Are Not Their Parents

Tonight, I watched Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl with some of my family. One of the major plot points of the movie is that a main character, Will Turner, is the child of a pirate whose blood was needed in order to lift the titular curse. Will is upset to learn that his father was a pirate because he seems to think that taints him somehow, and perhaps, in the culture of the time in which he lived, who a person's parents are mattered more than it does now, but these days, it's fairly well understood that a person is not their parents.

People can sometimes, perhaps often, turn out very different from their parents. They say that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, but it can, and it sometimes does. But regardless of what amount of impact parents might have on how their children turn out, all people are individual moral entities. People don't inherit their parents' sins. Will Turner may have been the son of a pirate, but that didn't make him a pirate himself. No matter how good or bad our parents are or were, we are our own people, and, to paraphrase an Article of Faith, we are responsible for our own actions, not for our parents'.

So, we don't need to take any responsibility for anything our parents did wrong, and we cannot take any responsibility for anything our parents did right. We are our own moral entities, and we are responsible for our own actions, regardless of who our parents were or what they did. Each person needs to take responsibility for themselves, not for their parents.

Seeking Power Isn't Evil

A lot of people and organizations catch flak for seeking power. This came up in a conversation I was in recently, and I wanted to say something about it, but I missed my opportunity, so I'll say it here: Power isn't evil, and it isn't evil to seek it.

At its default, power is neutral. Power is a tool that enables people to do things. If people seek power, that's because they want to do more and/or bigger things. Now, some people want to do bad things, and if they get enough power to do the bad things they want to do, they will do bad things, and that would, in fact, be bad. However, other people want to do good things, and if they get enough power to do the good things they want to do, they will do good things with that power, and that will actually be good. Power is neither good nor bad on its own. What matters is who has power and how they use it.

True, evil people seek the power to do evil, but it's also true that good people seek the power to do good. What makes someone good or evil is not whether they seek power, but why.

How to Be Kind to Evildoers

One of the points that stood out to me in our Ward's Primary Presentation last Sunday is the fact that we should be kind to everyone. Of course, this is nothing new. We all know that we should be kind to everyone, but how often do we actually think about what that means or how we should try to do that?

Being kind to everyone means being kind to the people who are not kind to us. It's means being kind to those who hold and promote different political opinions and who are actively trying to make the world a worse and more evil place. And it means being kind to kidnappers and murderers and those who have committed the worst sins imaginable. How on Earth can we manage to be kind to people like that, and what forms might that kindness take?

Certainly, we shouldn't compromise our principles and politely step back and let others do terrible things to others and the world. Being kind doesn't mean tolerating all sorts of behavior. Then, what does it mean, especially in the context of evildoers?

Part of such Christian kindness must include considering the eternal welfare of everyone involved, including the evildoers. When you consider their eternal trajectory, it becomes easier to feel sorry for those who are, morally speaking, going downhill. In fact, this pity can motivate us to try to convince them to stop digging themselves deeper into the pit, and consideration for others' eternal welfare can motivate us to do everything in our power to stop wrongdoers from dragging others down with them.

Being kind to evildoers means caring about their eternal welfare enough to want to convince them to stop. It means trying to stop them from doing evil, if for no one else's benefit but their own. It means trying to redeem evildoers, not just stop them or punish them. Of course, they must be stopped, but a kind person would try to stop them for their own sakes as well as everyone else's.

Being kind to evildoers doesn't mean tolerating all sorts of behavior. It means trying to put a stop to such behavior because you pity the misery to which their behavior is leading them.

Don't Let "Off" Moments Last

When I blogged about "Off" Moments recently, I neglected to mention that it's important to repent of them and to not allow them to last. We are all human, and so we all have bad days in which we make bad choices. However, it is important to learn from our bad choices and to learn to make better ones. We're not perfect yet, and we shouldn't burn ourselves out trying to be perfect, but we can and should be good, and we should regularly (as often as we can manage without burning ourselves out) strive to become better.

We are going to make bad choices, and as long as we are imperfect, we are going to keep making bad choices. Our goal should be to make our choices less bad and to make our bad choices less frequently. That's how progress is made; not by insisting on perfection, but in making gradual improvements.

We cannot demand perfection from ourselves or others yet, but we should keep heading in that direction. You're allowed to have "Off" Moments. Just try not to stay in them any longer than you have to.

The Greatest Generation

This morning, I watched a video honoring those who fought in World War II. Those heroes are sometimes described as The Greatest Generation, but Matthew Griffin, whose father was a member of that generation, had some interesting thoughts about that label:

I know, personally, that if I were to tell my grandfather "You're the greatest generation," he would roll his eyes at me and go "You're gonna take that as a statement? Not as a challenge?" and I think that's what it should be. It should be a challenge. Like, we should be the greatest generation. We need to be the ones saving the environment. We need to be the ones ending the wars. We need to fix our problems. We just can't look back at some guys and they have the label and we're never going to aspire to that.

It is self-limiting to call any generation of people, as great as they are, The Greatest Generation Ever. Rather, it can be just as respectful, but still empowering, to call them The Greatest Generation Yet. We can, and should try to, meet their level of greatness. If we fight our battles especially hard and well, we may even surpass them.

The youth in this church are, generation by generation, told that they were among the most valiant spirits in the war in heaven, and that they were chosen to come to Earth at this time because they were the ones that were strong enough to face the challenges of today. When I first realized that each generation is told that they were among the most valiant spirits, I thought that seemed contradictory. We can't all be the greatest. However, we can all be among the greatest, and we can each try to match and surpass the generation who came before us.

Naturally, we have a lot to live up to. The Greatest Generation set the bar very high. But still, I'm hopeful. We are their descendants. Their greatness flows through our veins. Using our modern resources and our own spiritual strength, we can build on the foundation they laid for us and raise a generation greater than they could have hoped. If we all build on what our forefathers created, we can build a world where each generation is greater than the last.

Granted, that's not what's happening. Many members of the current and rising generation fail to recognize what made the previous generations great. Instead, they fixate on the problems that that generation hadn't solved yet and use those problems as examples to claim that that generation wasn't great at all. Doubtless, future generations will one day look down on us for being as "backward" as we are now, even as we strive to push ourselves and each succeeding generation forward.

What I worry about is that the current and rising generations may fail to build on what the previous generations made possible and will instead destroy what the past generations accomplished and try to build something better from scratch. If they're foolish enough to try that, I hope, for everyone's sake, that they succeed, but moreso I hope they're wise enough not to try. Sure, past generations of Americans weren't perfect, but they did some good, and they built good things. If we continually build on those good things and find ways to make them even better, we will make a lot more progress than if we tear down what they've built and try to build something else from scratch.

But that's probably enough politics for me for now.

I hope that people acknowledge the greatness in others, recognize what made them great, and then use that knowledge to try to become ever greater. If we do that, if each generation builds on and improves on the greatness of the last, then it is possible for each succeeding generation to be The Greatest Generation Yet.

The Most Incredible Miracle

Our Ward had its Primary Presentation this weekend, and they finished the presentation by performing a new (to me) song titled The Miracle, which is about the miraculous effects of the Atonement:

Jesus is a God of miracles,
Nothing is at all impossible to Him,
But I know this:
Of all his miracles, the most incredible must be
the miracle that rescues me!

This is true on at least two levels. First, it's true that the Atonement was almost certainly the greatest of Christ's miracles. Creating the Earth is a contender, but paying an infinite price to make salvation possible for all mankind is still an incredible feat of divine power.

Second, I find it incredible that Jesus can rescue me, personally. I am far from being the worst person in the world, but I am also far from perfect. If Jesus Christ can make a perfect, sinless person out of me, then I would find that very impressive, perhaps even impressive enough to strain credulity. It's hard to believe that I could become perfect, even with divine aid, but Jesus has amazing things before. If it's true that "Nothing is at all impossible to Him," then perhaps He can, in fact, rescue me, though I still find that incredible, and I wonder, even with His divine power, how He's going to pull it off.

Whichever way you look at it, the Atonement is incredibly impressive. Through it, Jesus can accomplish feats that would otherwise be impossible, from redeeming all mankind to redeeming each individual member of mankind. The Atonement may or may not the greatest miracle Christ ever performed, since the Creation gives it a run for its money, but it very well could be the most incredible.